IS THE UNITED STATES READY FOR A BLACK PRESIDENT?

The election cam-paign in the United States is gaining momentum. Hillary Clinton won the latest primaries in New Hampshire on 19 January (51%). And, as in Nevada, the contribution of women, who made up the majority of voting democrats in Nevada, was hard to overestimate: 59% of female voters voted for Clinton. Barack Obama, on the other hand, took the votes of 69% of the black residents of Nevada. If this scenario continues he will inevitably win the next primaries, which the Democrats are holding on 26 January in South Carolina, where about a half of the population is African-American. When the local catering union, whose membership includes the personnel of the Las Vegas casinos, said it would support Obama, many observers declared that he would win Nevada, where the unions play an important role in the affairs of the Democratic Party. However, some political analysts warned that one fifth of the Nevada population were Latin Americans, who have historically been reluctant to vote for black candidates.

This is perhaps one of the reasons why Hillary Clinton defeated Obama so resoundingly with a difference of 38% as far as the Latin American vote was concerned. She also achieved greater success than in New Hampshire among the Catholic, male, elderly and white voters. For the second time running, the main social groups of the traditional Democratic coalition voted for her. This creates problems for Obama in the run-up to Super Tuesday on 5 February, when primaries will be held in 22 states simultaneously. Nonetheless, so far (this article was written before the announcement of the South Carolina results) Obama has secured most delegates to the Democratic Convention which will choose the party's candidate for the presidential election (25 delegates vs Clinton's 24).

Most politicians and analysts are focusing on the Clinton-Obama duel in these primaries, because very few people in the United States currently believe in a Republican victory in the upcoming elections, given the not very successful record of the Bush administration. But whom will the US Democratic Party nominate as its candidate for the US president - 60-year-old Hillary Clinton or 46-year-old Barack Hussein Obama Jr., the only African-American currently serving in the U.S. Senate?  This is currently one of the main questions of the presidential race in the country. So let us take a closer look at the newcomer in this big-time political clash.

Obama wrote a memoir of his childhood and youth, Dreams from My Father, which was published in 1995. "That my father looked nothing like the people around me - that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk - barely registered in my mind," Obama wrote. He described his extended family, which included Indonesian and Chinese relatives, as the "United Nations in miniature."

Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., was born on 4 August 1961 in Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii. The future candidate's father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., came to the United States to study economics.  His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was a white American who studied anthropology at the same university. Obama's parents separated when he was only 2. The father went on to pursue his Ph.D. at Harvard and eventually returned to Kenya. Ann Dunham married an Indonesian student. In 1976, Obama moved to Indonesia, and returned to Hawaii in 1980, where he attended a private school.

Obama embarked upon his public career in 1985 in Chicago, where he became a community organizer with a church-based group seeking to improve living conditions in poor neighbourhoods.  Before moving to Chicago, he had studied at Columbia University in New York, where he majored in political science, specializing in international relations. At the same time he worked for a small consulting firm whose clientele were mostly businesspersons wishing to start a business abroad.

In 1988, Obama entered the Harvard Law School, where he was elected first black president of the Harvard Law Review.  He was also elected the first black president of the Harvard Lawyers' Club.

Many experts note that Obama will use his legal expertise as one of his trump cards in this campaign, especially as, in addition to theoretical knowledge, he has also practised law.  In 1991, on his return to Chicago, Obama was an associate attorney with a law firm specializing in the advocacy of civil liberties. He was also a lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. "I will be a president who has read the constitution, who has taught the constitution, who believes in the constitution and who will uphold the constitution," The Financial Times quoted Obama as saying.

In 1992, Obama married Michelle Robinson, a lawyer.  They have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.  Obama and his wife are members of one of the Christian churches in Chicago, the Trinity United Church of Christ. According to Obama, his main hobbies are basketball and poker.

Obama started his political career in Chicago. From 1997 to 2004, he represented the Democratic Party in the Illinois State Senate. In 2000, Obama tried to run for the House of Representatives, but lost.  In 2004 he joined the race for the post of Illinois senator in the U.S. Senate. He confidently defeated six opponents in the primaries. And during the elections themselves, Obama won a landslide victory over Republican Alan Keyes. He was sworn in as a senator on 4 January 2005 and became the fifth African-American senator in US history. Obama held assignments on the Senate Committees for Foreign Relations, Health, Education, Labour and Pensions, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Veterans' Affairs. As a senator, he initiated 152 bills and took part in the development of another 427. Among his political interests were nuclear disarmament, immigration, climate change, and health insurance problems.

Obama's first claim to nationwide fame was his 29 July 2004 keynote address at the Democratic Convention. Effectively, it was Obama's introduction to America. "The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them too," Obama told his fellow party members. "...we are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes".  He would later return many times to the need to unite a country divided into Republicans and Democrats during the presidential campaign.

On 10 February 2007, standing before his supporters at a rally in Springfield, Illinois, Obama announced his candidacy for the 2008 U.S. presidential election. "He has always wanted to be president," Valerie Jarrett, a friend of the Obama family, told the New Yorker magazine.  She said that Obama would often tell her that, "he had some special qualities which he should not waste."

His desire was backed by his potential. Once on Capitol Hill, Barack Obama quickly gained favour with the press and became one of the most noticed politicians in Washington. In the fall of 2006, political analysts were already talking about the possibility of the black senator's running in the next presidential election.

"The American establishment is looking for a way out of the impasse to which George Bush has brought the country," the Russian newspaper Vedomosti quotes The United States and Canada Institute Director, Viktor Kremenyuk. Barack Obama's campaign message is clear: should he win, Obama will dismantle the heritage of his Republican predecessor and radically redirect policy in the interests of the middle class and especially its lower section. It is precisely this part of Obama's campaign makes him very attractive to voters, said Kremenyuk.

Obama is particularly critical of the incumbent Republican administration's policy on Iraq. As early as late 2002, long before the presidential campaign, Obama said at a rally that an "invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames in the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda." "I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars," Obama added, back then. Now, as a candidate, he promises that if he wins the election, he will start a gradual but steady withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. On foreign policy, Obama mentioned Russia too.  In his opinion, Russia is "neither a foe nor a close ally" of the United States at present. However, the United States should keep trying to "strengthen" Russian democracy. Incidentally, Obama visited Russia in 2005 with a colleague, Republican Senator Richard Lugar, to inspect the facilities where obsolete weapons of mass destruction are dismantled and utilized. Barack Obama also promised his supporters tax cuts, new schools, and health insurance reform to make health care more accessible to African-Americans and immigrants from Latin America.

Barack Obama's political opponents are saying that the senator lacks political and governing experience and that the United States cannot afford a president who will embark upon a "learning curve" once he enters office. Hillary Clinton described Obama as "naive and irresponsible." African-Ame-rican politicians also criticize Obama. In their opinion, he acts like a white man. However, there is an increasingly strong feeling among the general public in the United States that an African-American may become the next president of the country. It is noteworthy that Barack Obama was the first presidential candidate in the history of the United States to be assigned personal guards by the security services, nine months before the launch of the presidential campaign.

Obama's chances in the election will depend on the outcome of Super Tuesday on 5 February, when primaries will be held in 22 states simultaneously. The candidate who carries the six largest states - California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia and Massachusetts - will win.  Only then will the Democratic Party nominate its candidate. "Obama, like John Kennedy in the past, symbolizes a break with tradition," said V. Kremenyuk.  While Kennedy was the first Catholic president, Obama stands to become the first African-American president.